A blog launched on the 41st anniversary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the first pro-life organisation in the world, established on 11 January 1967. SPUC has been a leader in the educational and political battle against abortion, human embryo experimentation and euthanasia since then. I write this blog in my role as SPUC's chief executive, commenting on pro-life news, reflecting on pro-life issues and promoting SPUC's work.

Friday, 31 December 2010

In recent weeks a range of religious figures outside the UK has been speaking up on pro-life/pro-family issues:

the Chief Rabbis in Israel, in a letter to all the country's rabbis, have called on Israelis to fight the country's abortion epidemic

the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the leader of Palestinian Catholics, has decribed the world's annual abortion death toll as heart-breaking

Thomas Olmsted, bishop of Phoenix in America, has removed a hospital's Catholic status over the hospital's dissent from Catholic teaching on abortion. (According to Paola Rodari, an Italian Catholic journalist, Cardinal Raymond Burke has described Bishop Olmsted's role in the matter as "an example to follow".)

Another prominent religious believer, the actor Jim Caviezel (who played Jesus in "The Passion of the Christ") has described abortion as "the greatest moral defect of the western world".

On the plus side, the latest pastoral letter from Peter Smith, archbishop of Southwark reads:

"The Church has consistently taught that the best context for learning about, and being nurtured in authentic human relationships, is within marriage and the family. And the evidence from report after report in recent years indicates very clearly that even from a secular point of view, marriage between a man and a woman provides far and away the best place to bring up a family and educate children. It is within that stable, loving context that children learn to develop spiritually, emotionally, physically and intellectually."

There is, however, a mismatch between Archbishop Smith's defence of heterosexual, married parenting and the succour which at least some of his fellow-bishops in England are giving to groups and publications which promote homosexual partnerships and homosexual parenting.* We need clear, consistent leadership on pro-life/pro-family issues from our country's own religious leaders. We should not have to rely upon religious figures from abroad to plug the gap.

*The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught (Evangelium Vitae, 1995, para.97) it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

Thursday, 30 December 2010

It is reported that Costa Rica is under pressure to legalise in vitro fertilisation (IVF). Amidst all the challenges faced by the pro-life movement, we must continue to work openly and courageously for a ban on all IVF procedures. Opposing IVF does not imply denying babies, conceived by IVF, their humanity. However, it's vital to oppose IVF as a way of conceiving children since it turns human beings into commodities to be brought to birth or discarded at will. Since the birth to the first IVF child over thirty years ago, in the UK well over two million embryos have been discarded, or frozen, or selectively aborted, or miscarried or used in destructive experiments.

IVF amounts to the manufacture of human beings. The practice of IVF assumes that our offspring may be produced in the laboratory, and that the role of the natural mother, in safeguarding with her own body the welfare of the embryo from conception, may legitimately be transferred to other people.

As Dr John Fleming, SPUC's consultant on bioethics, puts it:

"There is no such thing as a form of IVF which respects life. Human life is disrespected in the embryos and in their parents by virtue of the process itself, namely the gestation of a human being outside of his natural environment."

Do read Fr Fleming's review for SPUC of Dignitas Personae, the 2008 Instruction on certain bioethical questions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Also, do order a copy of Fr Fleming's book on the same Instruction.

The use of IVF and related technologies have been condemned by the Catholic Church as contrary to the natural moral law. Catholic teaching on the matter is crystal clear. As Dignitas Personae explains (14):

"The fact that the process of in vitro fertilization very frequently involves the deliberate destruction of embryos was already noted in the Instruction Donum vitae. There were some who maintained that this was due to techniques which were still somewhat imperfect. Subsequent experience has shown, however, that all techniques of in vitro fertilization proceed as if the human embryo were simply a mass of cells to be used, selected and discarded."

The Catholic Church also teaches that:

"The moral relevance of the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and between the goods of marriage, as well as the unity of the human being and the dignity of his origin, demand that the procreation of a human person be brought about as the fruit of the conjugal act specific to the love between spouses." (Instruction Donum Vitae, on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of procreation, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 1987)

The Catholic Church's teaching against IVF shares some common points with its perennial prohibition of all condom use. In both IVF and condom use, sexual activity is separated from procreation, with ejaculation occurring outside the morally required environment of a wife's vaginal tract. As I have argued many times, the acceptance of the separation of sexual activity from procreation underpins today's anti-life and anti-family culture. Either directly or indirectly, that separation and its acceptance underpins abortion, abortifacient birth control, destructive embryo research, abusive parenting of children and the promotion of homosexuality. As the late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught (Evangelium Vitae, 1995, para.97) it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

It is therefore absolutely vital that faithful pro-life/pro-family Catholics must:

Wednesday, 29 December 2010

The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught (Evangelium Vitae, 1995, para.97) that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer our children an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

This morning's newspapers carry extensive coverage of the news that Elton John and David Furnish are now the legal parents of a baby boy. Full details have not been confirmed, but it seems that Mr Furnish provided sperm which was used to fertilise a donated egg, and the resulting child was gestated by a surrogate mother. Sir Elton and Mr Furnish evaded UK restrictions on surrogacy by paying for the surrogacy arrangement in California.

Sir Elton's acquisition of a child is thus deeply disturbing. We have a duty to speak out against surrogacy and against homosexual parenting on behalf of the children involved, who are voiceless. Silence on our part would be consent. I hope that religious leaders will speak out in defence of the newborn child - including Catholic bishops. Please let me know if you hear anything. Unfortunately Catholic bishops in England and Wales have given vocal support to homosexualist goals, groups and publications. Both Archbishop Vincent Nichols and Archbishop Bernard Longley have attacked faithful pro-life/pro-family Catholics for telling inconvenient truths about the Soho Masses. One of those truths is the support for homosexual parenting among the Soho Masses organisers. Terence Weldon, a member of the Soho Masses Pastoral Council who distributes Holy Communion at the Masses, is also a homosexualist blogger who writes in favour of homosexual parenting.

Well-informed parents - not least those active locally or nationally in the pro-life movement - must make their voices heard with or without episcopal support. We owe it to the children.

Thursday, 23 December 2010

Technology Review reports that mapping the genome* of an unborn child using DNA from his mother's blood may have the potential for "broad genetic testing without risk to the foetus".

I've deliberately highlighted "without risk" because, in reality, we know that the risk of the development of this technique to the unborn child, in the present social, political and legal environment, is lethal and it's huge.

Mapping the genome for disabilities is praised for being "non-invasive" - unlike amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling which are currently used to test for conditions such as Down Syndrome.

It's also praised because it does not carry "a small risk of miscarriage" as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling do.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists states that about 1 in every 100 women who have amniocentesis under ultrasound guidance after 15 weeks will miscarry.(If my child had about a 1% of being murdered at school, I wouldn't send my child to school. The pressure these days on couples who may be expecting a disabled child is so great, and society's regard for the disabled child is so low, that people are actually seriously prepared to risk killing their child in order to find out whether he or she is disabled. And when the child is thought to be disabled the overwhelming majority are killed)

"Given that we already know that couples will often abort for major foetal genetic defects and sometimes even for suspected minor ones, this development could lead to significantly greater numbers of abortions on the grounds of foetal disability in search for a child as free of disability possible – fed by what seems to be an almost inherent eugenic mentality.

"While it is difficult to predict where people will draw the line when deciding to abort or not based upon the genetic information, at the very least the broader detection of genetic problems will expand the choices. Some of those genetic problems will be predispositions for certain disorders, so that couples will be making choices based upon probabilities of disorders arising in their offspring’s middle age.

"One of the arguments that often comes up in favour of genetic screening is that it helps the couple prepare for a child with a disability. I think it is likely that such cases are very few in number and by far the majority end up in abortion, at least where the disability is major."

Dr Pike takes the view that this work represents a very significant step towards the eventual routine mapping of the entire genome of the foetus from a maternal blood sample. He tells me that an affordable complete genome test may be 5, 10 or even 20 years away, and this work is a major step towards that end. In that case, genetic screening for a wide range of disorders could be routinely offered. Cost, he says, would likely be the inhibiting factor.

This is chilling. How barbaric does society have to become in its wholesale slaughter of unborn children and of disabled unborn children in particular before it wakes up and challenges eugenic policies and practices?

Sarah Palin, the US politician who ran for the vice-presidency in 2008, is constantly mocked by the British media. In my view she gave one of the most important political speeches of the 21st century so far when she said:

"I believe the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves. And who is more vulnerable, or more innocent, than a child?

"When I learned that my son Trig would have special needs, I had to prepare my heart for the challenges to come. At first I was scared, and Todd and I had to ask for strength and understanding. But I can tell you a few things I’ve learned already.

"Yes, every innocent life matters. Everyone belongs in the circle of protection. Every child has something to contribute to the world, if we give them that chance. There are the world’s standards of perfection … and then there are God’s, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake.

"As for our beautiful baby boy, for Todd and me, he is only more precious because he is vulnerable."

*all the unborn child's inheritable traits

If you would like to have a summary, prepared by Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, on the research done on mapping the genome of the unborn child, write to me and I will send it to you.

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

A Belgian court has awarded a disabled child "damages" for being born. According to the court the unborn child had a right to be aborted. Gènéthique reports:

"The Brussels Court of Appeal ruled on 21st September this year that the child, represented by his parents, could claim damages from physicians for the injury of being born disabled. 'Certainly, the misdiagnosis did not cause the child's disability, which existed before the error and which could not be remedied,' the Court considered. 'However, the injury which must be compensated is not the disability itself, but the fact of being born with such disabilities.'

"For the Court, the child would have had 'right' to an abortion if the disability had been correctly diagnosed. Indeed, by making 'therapeutic abortion' part of Belgian law, 'the legislator must have intended to allow women to avoid giving birth to children with serious abnormalities, having regard not only to the interests of the mother, but also to those of the unborn child itself.'"

Based on what he calls the "limited description of the case" Fr John Fleming, SPUC's bioethical consultant and a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, has made the following observations:

The court said that by making "therapeutic abortion" part of Belgian law, "the legislator must have intended to allow women to avoid giving birth to children with serious abnormalities, having regard not only to the interests of the mother, but also to those of the unborn child itself." The judges have no idea what legislators intended about the “interests of the unborn child itself”. That is simply an inference. In any case, what they have decided is that the child had the right to be aborted. But if the child is not a “legal person” with the inalienable right to life, then such a child has no rights at all, including the right to be aborted. This simply makes no sense.

Accepting for the moment that the unborn child has rights, if it is the child with a disability that had both the right to an accurate diagnosis of his condition and with it the right to be aborted, then how could that right be exercised? From the right to something it does not necessarily follow that someone else would know how that person would exercise that right. How would such an unborn child be consulted and be able to give informed consent?

The child also has the right to life. Who can arbitrate between these two rights? The parents? If so, on what objective grounds could they make such a decision?

No parent has the moral right to kill their own child even when they consider it might be in the child’s best interests.

If the child has a right to be aborted, it then follows that the doctor has a duty to abort. But what of the right of the doctor to conscientious objection. Even referring to another doctor would be sinful material cooperation in evil which might well be offensive to the conscientious doctor’s conscience.

Are the physicians able to be sued for negligence for misdiagnosing? But who says it is negligence rather than a mistake? And in this case the so-called “negligence” caused no harm because the child lived.

Is the whole thing about a cynical grab for money by his parents? Or … does this sort of legal action come about because the State provides insufficient support for parents to properly care for their child and this seems to be one way out of the burdens they are experiencing and with which they may be having great difficulty in coping?

Such a judgement undermines the duty of care parents owe their child. It signals to the child we would have killed you if we had the ‘legal’ chance to do so.

Alison Davis, the co-ordinator of No Less Human, a group within SPUC defending the right to life of the disabled, told me:

"This smacks clearly of the terrifying acts which took place in Germany in the 1940's, using the same sort of confusing pseudonyms used then. 'Best interests' for disabled people equals death."

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Yesterday, the Select Committee on International Development (in the British House of Commons) confirmed, what I reported in October, that the pro-abortion lobby has failed to hijack the millennium development goals in order to promote legalized abortion throughout the world. Their failure followed a worldwide lobby initiated by SPUC's chief lobbyist at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva - a lobby which focused on the false claims made by the pro-abortion lobby and the fact that more abortions do not lead to fewer maternal mortalities.

It's another welcome reminder that pro-life lobbying works. We're not successful every time as is so tragically obvious here in Britain, rightly described as the geopolitical centre of the culture of death. However, well-informed, courteous, disciplined lobbying works.

In their report published yesterday, the Select Committee praises the British government's commitment to promoting abortion overseas* but complains:

"We were surprised to see that the Summit Outcome Document does not mention population growth at all. We also believe this issue is under-prioritised in the current MDG framework. The world's population is growing and it is startling that global development structures do not take account of this increasing squeeze on resources. We welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to put reproductive health at the centre of DFID's programmes, and to extend contraception to 10 million couples. As 2015 draws closer, we recommend that DFID advocate strongly that the post-2015 framework give sufficient attention to the issue of population growth so that future targets take account of the need to address the world's increasing number of people."

To learn about the benefits of population growth and about the myth of overpopulation, take a look at the Population Research Institute's (PRI) excellent video series which you can find here - and you can also find out about the science behind their videos.

*The promotion of abortion and contraception dominated the Coalition government's consultation on reproductive, maternal and newborn health earlier this year.

"The misguided scientific ideas of physicians and scientists were integral to Nazis' crimes against humanity and should serve as a reminder to doctors to put patients before political ideology ... As evil as these actions appear in retrospect, they arose out of a highly sophisticated German medical culture, said Matthew K. Wynia, MD, MPH ... More than half of the Nobel Prizes that were awarded in science through the 1930s went to Germans ... 'If we divorce ourselves from them or view them as entirely alien, then our ability to understand these medical crimes is thwarted, as well as is our ability to prevent other medical crimes,' Dr. Wynia said. 'These doctors became killers, not despite their training but in the name of their science and training' ... [I]t is so important for doctors to maintain their professionalism in the face of political and other pressures ... 'This is not just Jewish history,' Dr. Wynia said. 'All doctors and medical professionals need to know and understand this material.'"

I have blogged before on the significance for the pro-life/pro-family of understanding both Nazi medicine and the pro-abortion and pro-contraception culture rampant in Germany leading up to the Third Reich. I therefore heartily recommend all my readers to view the exhibition online.

Friday, 17 December 2010

Pope Benedict XVI's message for the 44th World Day of Peace, which will be observed on New Year's Day, has been published. I reproduce below some extracts of the message relevant to pro-life and pro-family issues. The most important extract, I believe, contains a repeated emphasis on parents as the first and foremost educators of their children, including in moral matters such as sexuality*:

"The family...finds its place here as the first school for the social, cultural, moral and spiritual formation and growth of children ... Parents must be always free to transmit to their children, responsibly and without constraints, their heritage of faith, values and culture. The family, the first cell of human society, remains the primary training ground for harmonious relations at every level of coexistence, human, national and international ..."

The right of parents to be primary educators of their children is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (and Pope Benedict refers to that declaration in his message). This is a point I fully explored in my concluding address to the Fourth International Pro-Life Congress, in Saragossa, Spain.

Very timely is Pope Benedict's comments today in a message to the archbishop of Naples:

"Of course, today's social and cultural context is very different from the past and, although we may joy in the Lord for the genuine and persisting faith of so many Christians, it is painful to note the spread of a secularised view of life and the emergence of evils afflicting the body public, which is threatened by individualism. In this atmosphere, negative and deviant models also exercise their influence, having a strong impact on family and social life, especially on the new generations. Thus I wish to reiterate the urgent need for the human and Christian formation of children and young people, because they are seriously exposed to the risks of deviancy".

SPUC is already responding to "the urgent need for the human and Christian formation of children and young people" by helping parents keep their children Safe at School.

Extracts from Pope Benedict's message for the 44th World Day of Peace, 1 January 2011:

"Respect for essential elements of human dignity, such as the right to life and the right to religious freedom, is a condition for the moral legitimacy of every social and legal norm."

"The family founded on marriage, as the expression of the close union and complementarity between a man and a woman, finds its place here as the first school for the social, cultural, moral and spiritual formation and growth of children, who should always be able to see in their father and mother the first witnesses of a life directed to the pursuit of truth and the love of God. Parents must be always free to transmit to their children, responsibly and without constraints, their heritage of faith, values and culture. The family, the first cell of human society, remains the primary training ground for harmonious relations at every level of coexistence, human, national and international. Wisdom suggests that this is the road to building a strong and fraternal social fabric, in which young people can be prepared to assume their proper responsibilities in life, in a free society, and in a spirit of understanding and peace."

"Numerous charitable and cultural institutions testify to the constructive role played by believers in the life of society. More important still is religion’s ethical contribution in the political sphere."

"Today too, in an increasingly globalized society, Christians are called, not only through their responsible involvement in civic, economic and political life but also through the witness of their charity and faith, to offer a valuable contribution to the laborious and stimulating pursuit of justice, integral human development and the right ordering of human affairs. The exclusion of religion from public life deprives the latter of a dimension open to transcendence. Without this fundamental experience it becomes difficult to guide societies towards universal ethical principles and to establish at the national and international level a legal order which fully recognizes and respects fundamental rights and freedoms as these are set forth in the goals – sadly still disregarded or contradicted – of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

"The patrimony of principles and values expressed by an authentic religiosity is a source of enrichment for peoples and their ethos. It speaks directly to the conscience and mind of men and women, it recalls the need for moral conversion, and it encourages the practice of the virtues and a loving approach to others as brothers and sisters, as members of the larger human family."

"Politics and diplomacy should look to the moral and spiritual patrimony offered by the great religions of the world in order to acknowledge and affirm universal truths, principles and values which cannot be denied without denying the dignity of the human person. But what does it mean, in practical terms, to promote moral truth in the world of politics and diplomacy? It means acting in a responsible way on the basis of an objective and integral knowledge of the facts; it means deconstructing political ideologies which end up supplanting truth and human dignity in order to promote pseudo-values under the pretext of peace, development and human rights; it means fostering an unswerving commitment to base positive law on the principles of the natural law. All this is necessary and consistent with the respect for the dignity and worth of the human person enshrined by the world’s peoples in the 1945 Charter of the United Nations, which presents universal values and moral principles as a point of reference for the norms, institutions and systems governing coexistence on the national and international levels."

* Why is the Catholic Church's teaching on sexuality (and dissent from that teaching) important for the pro-life movement? The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught in paragraph 97 of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

The court rejected the legal arguments of the first two women, but said that the third woman's right to a private life under article 8 of the European Convention had been violated by a failure of the Irish state to make her rights regarding abortion accessible to her. The court claimed that the Irish Constitution gives women a right to abortion under the Constitution's protection of the equal right to life of the mother of an unborn child. The third woman was in remission from cancer at the time of the pregnancy and feared that the pregnancy would cause a relapse of her cancer.

As I told them media this morning, the court has misinterpreted the Irish Constitution and confused abortion with healthcare. The Irish Constitution does not confer any right to abortion, nor can the right to life of unborn children in any way be held to be in competition with the right to life of their mothers. Abortion is not healthcare, and Ireland, where abortion is banned, has the world's best record for maternal health. If implemented in law, this judgement would legalise abortion in a wide range of circumstances.

This case was never about helping women faced with a crisis pregnancy. It was instigated by the international abortion lobby, which has with the ultimate aim of forcing governments across the globe to recognise access to abortion as a legal right.

This warped decision lacks all legitimacy. It is vitally important that the people of Ireland continue to stand-up for the rights of unborn children who are the youngest and most vulnerable members of society. Abortion not only kills children: it is deeply damaging to women.

“The court has failed to respect Ireland’s national sovereignty by unilaterally misinterpreting the Irish Constitution's protection of the right to life. Ireland must dismiss out of hand this interference in a very sensitive national and constitutional issue. Europe is again deciding over the heads of the Irish people. We wonder what will be next tomorrow?

“In protecting the unborn from abortion Ireland is fulfilling its duty under international human rights law to protect the lives of its innocent citizens. In any case, the Irish Supreme Court has already ruled* that the Irish Constitution trumps the European Convention on Human Rights, because the Convention is not part of Irish law and therefore not directly applicable in Irish cases”, concluded Mr Buckley. * McD. -v- L. & anor, 10 Dec 2009 http://bit.ly/g5k35B

The right to life is the fundamental human right on which all other rights depend. Article 2 of the European Convention recognises the right to life of everyone, regardless of race, nationality, sex, age, birth or any other status. This is also recognised by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. No legally-binding international agreement has ever recognised access to abortion as a human right.

Liam Gibson of SPUC is outside the court today. He and other SPUC spokesmen are available to the media for comment. For more information contact Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, on landline (020) 7820 3129, mobile (0)7939 177683 or by email anthonyozimic@spuc.org.uk

Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Tomorrow (at 11:00 French time, 10:00 UK time) the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, will deliver its judgment in the "A, B & C" case of three Irish residents who have challenged Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortion. SPUC is an intervening party in the case (read SPUC’s joint submission with other pro-life groups).

“We hope that the court will respect Ireland’s national sovereignty by leaving the Irish Constitution’s ban on abortion alone. The Irish Supreme Court last year ruled* that the Irish Constitution trumps the European Convention on Human Rights, because the Convention is not part of Irish law and therefore not directly applicable in Irish cases.” * McD. -v- L. & anor, 10 Dec 2009 http://bit.ly/g5k35B

“Thus far the European Court of Human Rights has never interfered in the constitutions of European nation-states. Ireland must dismiss out of hand any such interference if the court attempts it in its judgment tomorrow. In protecting the unborn from abortion Ireland is fulfilling its duty under international human rights law to protect the lives of its innocent citizens”.

Liam Gibson of SPUC will be outside the court tomorrow both before and after the judgment. He and other SPUC spokesmen will be available to the media for comment. For more information contact Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, on landline (020) 7820 3129, mobile (0)7939 177683 or by email anthonyozimic@spuc.org.uk

Tuesday, 14 December 2010

SPUC has responded to comments by Gill Frances, chairman of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group (TPIAG), announcing a disgraceful final report from the axed quango.

Paul Tully, SPUC’s general secretary, told the media today:

“The previous government spent £300 million on promoting contraception and school-based sex ed under the teenage pregnancy strategy. It is now widely accepted that that strategy was a massive failure. Yet the group claims absurdly that the rise in teenage abortions is a proof that such a strategy has worked.

“The group should be bowing out with an apology for accelerating teenage abortions and rising sexually transmitted infections, with all the associated misery. Instead the group has issued a final hurrah designed to dress up its failure with statistical tricks and distortions. To cap the failure, the group calls for more of the same after they have gone.

“Teenage pregnancy may actually be more frequent now than twenty years ago. The statistics are obscured by the techniques used. The group’s claim that teenage conceptions are the lowest for 20 years excludes an unknown number of babies aborted early in pregnancy by hormonal birth control like the morning after pill, which, according to its makers, may fail to prevent conception and cause an early abortion instead. The promotion of the morning after pill may have masked many conceptions in recent years.

“Gill Frances’ claim that public funding for contraceptives saves the NHS money is based on a false assumption: that giving teenagers easy access to contraception without parents knowing cuts conception and abortion rates. It doesn't.

“The Coalition government needs to review the whole approach. It should insist on an independent review of evidence for preventing teenage pregnancy and abortion."

In addition, SPUC also believes that the government needs to take the following action:

1) Take a hard look at the evidence for the current strategy of promoting contraception and abortion for adolescents.
Campaigns promoting contraception are counter-productive. Contraception has a very high failure among teenagers. To give them condoms or other forms of contraception is simply to play Russian roulette with pregnancy and infection. Most of the young woman who have an unintended pregnancy and then consider abortion had actually been using contraception at or around the time they became pregnant.

2) Re-engage with parents in teaching children about responsible sexual behaviour.
The most effective approach to improving the prospects for teenagers is to support them via their parents. International human rights law says that parents are the first and foremost educators of their children, so it is the parents of teenagers, not schools or the government, who have the right and responsibility to educate their children on sexual matters. Schools, government and charities often pay lip-service to supporting the parents. This needs to be made real. Engaging with parents does not mean replacing them with sex ed teachers or peer educators or school nurses.

3) Ban obscene classroom sex-education.
The current trend to ever more lurid sex education programmes - dubbed "kiddie-porn" by concerned parents - must be stopped. Sex and relationships education (SRE) in schools has become an avenue for sexualising the culture in which children have to live. SRE is now a main vehicle for teaching teenagers how to access abortion and contraception without their parents’ knowing. The medical, social and psychological after effects are suffered by young people, women especially. The wider burdens (such as single parents, treating STIs, subsequent infertility, etc) fall on the taxpayer too. The forthcoming curriculum review will be an opportunity for the government to reassess the damage that current classroom-SRE is doing, and consider alternative approaches.

My picture shows Archbishop Fisichella (right), president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, with the co-authors of "Light of the World", a book-length discussion between Pope Benedict XVI and Peter Seewald, a German journalist.

How very unfortunate and inappropriate it is that Archbishop Fisichella should have been seen playing such a prominent role at the launch of "Light of the World".

Pope Benedict's comments about the use of condoms in that book have led to maelstrom of carefully created confusion in the mass media about Catholic teaching on condoms. Last month I warned that leading public figures in the name of the Catholic Church, in Britain and elsewhere, are misrepresenting the church's unchanging and unchangeable magisterial teaching on the use of condoms.

The picture above reminds me of the terrible damage Archbishop Fisichella has done to the Catholic Church's witness on abortion. He stands by the original wording of his article in L'Osservatore Romano, last year, which implied that there are difficult situations in which doctors enjoy scope for the autonomous exercise of conscience in deciding whether to carry out a direct abortion. Frances Kissling, of Catholics for a Free Choice, has said of the archbishop's position it "has opened a crack, through which women, doctors and political decision-makers can slip in".

Archbishop Fisichella's position on abortion gave comfort to Frances Kissling and, no doubt, to other opponents of Catholic teaching on abortion, such as Obama and Hilary Clinton, who are bankrolling abortion worldwide.

And those misrepresenting Catholic teaching on condoms worldwide, following Pope Benedict's interview, are now giving comfort to anti-life, anti-family legislators in the Philippines.

Thank God that the Kenyan bishops recently reiterated and reaffirmed "that the position of the Catholic Church as regards the use of condoms, both as a means of contraception and as a means of addressing the grave issue of HIV/AIDS infection has not changed and remains as always unacceptable".

I have frequently called for Archbishop Fisichella to be sacked. The price of not doing so is moral confusion in the church.

Monday, 13 December 2010

Bernard Longley (pictured), archbishop of Birmingham, has given an interview to The Tablet, in which he criticises (in similar terms to Vincent Nichols, archbishop of Westminster) those Catholics who oppose the Soho Masses for homosexuals*. He goes on to contradict himself somewhat by disagreeing - rather weakly - with Archbishop Nichols and Bishop Malcolm McMahon on civil partnerships. (Readers will recall that Archbishop Nichols said that the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales was not opposed to gay civil partnerships; and Bishop McMahon said that he had no problem with headteachers of Catholic schools being in civil partnerships). You can read the relevant part of the interview at the end of this blog-post.

Daphne McLeod, chairman of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, which organises a regular prayer vigil outside the Soho Masses, has written a letter (see below) to The Tablet in response to Archbishop Longley's interview comments. Daphne has kindly given permission for her letter to be blogged.

To Daphne's excellent letter, I would add: what on earth is an archbishop doing giving an interview to The Tablet, the de facto house journal of British liberal Catholic dissent, including on pro-life/pro-family issues? Archbishop Longley owes faithful pro-life/pro-family Catholics an unreserved apology.

* The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught in paragraph 97 of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

Letter from Daphne McLeod, chairman, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice

The Editor, “The Tablet”
1, King Street Cloisters,
London. W6 OGY

11th December 2010

Dear Editor,

I am surprised to read Archbishop Longley’s attack on those of us who pray outside the Church of Our Lady and St Gregory during the five o’clock Masses for ‘lesbian and gay Catholics’ every first and third Sunday. His remarks include some inaccuracies which need correcting.

First, this is not a protest though that may be the way the homosexuals who organise these Masses describe it to the Archbishop. If he had spoken to any of us we would have explained that we are not protesting but praying in reparation for any sacrileges that might be taking place.

As it is we pray the fifteen mysteries of the Holy Rosary, and the Divine Praises in reparation, the Divine Mercy Chaplet for all sinners and, at six o’clock, before we end, the Angelus. Although small in number we know we are joined by many who cannot reach London but who pray with us in churches, in homes and in convents.

Second, the Archbishop says he doesn’t know whether any of us “have made attempts to meet the people who are going to these Masses”. If he had asked us we would have assured him that we have met many of them and I would like to put it on record here that most of them are very friendly and perfectly honest about their homosexual lifestyles, introducing us to their partners and emphasising that they are in sexual relationships. So we are not ‘making any assumptions’ about them.

Some of us have been down to the Social Hour which follows every Mass where we have received kind hospitality enabling us to spend some time eating and drinking and talking to them and examining the books they have on sale. No-one, apart from the Archbishop, tries to pretend they are living or striving to live chaste lives.

Of course there are chaste homosexuals in the Church who do live chaste lives and they demand our real respect, but they would never ask for or attend any Mass arranged especially for homosexuals. They go to Mass in their own parish and only receive Holy Communion if they are in a state of Grace, like the rest of us. I know from phone calls I have received that many of them are very concerned about the Soho Masses where everyone receives Holy Communion in spite of openly admitting they are and intend to stay in homosexual relationships.

If Archbishop Longley really thinks we are so misguided, why didn’t he approach us and put us right when he was an Auxiliary in Westminster? He had plenty of opportunity. Indeed, once when we had both attended a talk in Westminster Hall I started to approach him to discuss this problem only to see him turn and run out of the hall and disappear. I pursued him but, as I can’t run as fast as I used to now I am 82, I lost him.

We know he has spent a lot of time with ex-Carmelite priest Martin Pendergast, his long term partner Julian Filochowski and the other organisers. At the first Mass they thanked him publicly from the altar for not insisting they make any changes to their homosexual lifestyles. This was repeated later on their web-site and in the Pink Paper, the paper for practising homosexuals in London. This paper also celebrated Archbishop Longley’s elevation to Birmingham as ‘their’ bishop getting promotion.

I do feel this pretence and condoning is not in any sense compassionate or pastoral. These Catholics need and deserve proper guidance, especially the young ones who have not received good religious instruction. I cannot forget the poor young man who said to me, “There is no need to worry about us Daphne, if it were still wrong these Masses would not have been especially arranged for us.”

Of course it is still wrong. St Paul among others makes that very clear and so does the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church and they both also stress that anyone practising this life style must not receive Holy Communion without repentance, Confession and a desire to amend their lives. Who is Archbishop Longley to change this age-old universal teaching?

Perhaps after reading this, the Archbishop might like to revise his own judgemental stance about us.

Daphne McLeod
Chairman
Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice

From the interview with Bernard Longley, archbishop of Birmingham, The Tablet, 11 December 2010:

"...Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor selected him to negotiate with a group of lesbian and gay Catholics who wanted a regular Mass celebrated for them, their families and friends. For some years the Mass had been celebrated in an Anglican church in London’s Soho and the cardinal felt it should be in a Catholic church instead. It was settled in 2007 that the Soho Masses Pastoral Council should be formed and would be responsible for organising a monthly Mass at the Church of the Assumption in Warwick Street. Conservative Catholics opposed to the Mass regularly gather outside to protest but Archbishop Longley has stern words for them. 'The Church does not, as it were, have a moral means-testing of people before they come to receive the sacraments and it is very easy to jump to and come to the wrong conclusions about people when you don’t know them. I don’t know whether the people outside have made attempts to meet the people who are going to the Masses in Soho,' he says. I question whether those protesting are making assumptions about those people’s lifestyles, to which the archbishop replies: 'I would assume that is the case, and so it isn’t for any of us to make those judgements which, in conscience, people make before God and also within the sacraments, particularly the Sacrament of Reconciliation assisted by priests and other pastors within the Church. I think, at the end of the day, those sorts of protests are counterproductive and usually have the effect of hardening attitudes and polarising rather than fundamentally changing people’s minds.'

"Given his reluctance to make assumptions about the lifestyles of gay Catholics, it might be reasonable to assume that he would have no objection to civil partnerships. After all, the Archbishop of Westminster and president of the bishops’ conference, Vincent Nichols, does not oppose them. But Archbishop Longley thinks differently. 'I am not in favour of it because it establishes a legally and publicly recognised relationship which is too easily confused with the sacrament of marriage. Obviously it’s not marriage, because a marriage is between a man and a woman, but I do think it is very easy for people to be confused about civil partnerships and marriage as if they were the same thing.'

"Another of his fellow bishops, Malcolm McMahon, chairman of the Catholic Education Service, has said that a head teacher could be in a civil partnership and still live according to the Church’s teaching. But Archbishop Longley is doubtful about this. 'In those circumstances, a practising Catholic would not enter into a civil partnership in good standing with the Church. It would be a matter of concern, I think, in a school if a teacher were to enter into a civil partnership, but that would be something that would be the concern of the governing body of the school and clearly of the trustees.'"

Saturday, 11 December 2010

The Good Shepherd Catholic newspaper from Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, has reported on the solid opposition of Nigeria's Catholic bishops to abortion. Their opposition to the African Union's pro-abortion Maputo Protocol was reiterated by John Onaiyekan, archbishop of Abuja, at a press conference.

The newspaper says that the bishops have described the protocol's paragraph 14; 2C, entitled "Health and Reproductive Rights", as

"a blank cheque for abortion to be committed saying it is completely unacceptable to all religious communities in Nigeria"

and as

"obnoxious"

adding that

“as Africans we must cherish our culture that respects life.”

Archbishop Onaiyekan urged Nigerians

"not to succumb to abortion in any guise"

calling it

"murder"

It is encouraging to see bishops in the developing world giving solid pro-life catechesis, especially at a time when a certain Vatican official in the developed world has misled the faithful about the absolute wrongness of all procured abortions.

Friday, 10 December 2010

Next Thursday 16 December, the European Court of Human Rights is to hand down its ruling in the case of three women seeking to overturn Ireland’s constitutional protection for unborn children. Please pray that the right to life of children continues to be protected in the Republic from conception.

“The importance of this case cannot be exaggerated. The Court must acknowledge the right to life of the weakest and most vulnerable members of the human family if it is to retain any credibility in defending the most fundamental right of all human beings.

“While no international treaty has ever recognised access to abortion as a human right, the European Court has in previous cases failed in its obligation to uphold the right to life of children before birth. This case was instigated by the international abortion lobby because it has failed to persuade the people of Ireland to legalise abortion. But success in the European Court would also be a stepping stone towards the creation of an internationally recognised human right to abortion on demand.

“The rule of law must be based on both justice and reason – and creating a right to kill children in the womb is irrational. If you can kill children before birth, why not after birth? Do children acquire the right to life only in the process of birth? That makes the right to life into a spell that is cast by the magic of the midwife. We call upon believers and non-believers alike to reject such mumbo-jumbo. In the days left before the court hands down its ruling, we call upon believers in particular to pray for the court and to pray that the our judges will not permit the killing of innocent unborn children in the name of human rights. We must pray that no matter what the court decides, unborn children who cannot defend themselves will be safe in Ireland.”

Thursday, 9 December 2010

SPUC has responded to the announcement by Sarah Teather (pictured), the children's minister, that she has commissioned an independent review into the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.

Paul Tully, SPUC's general secretary, told the media earlier today:

"Sarah Teather's review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of children addresses some of the deepest concerns that parents have today. But SPUC is concerned that the review should include a look at ways children are sexualised in schools - by explicit and lurid sex lessons for instance. This is more insidious than sexualisation in other spheres and it drives up the abortion rate, especially as secret abortions for girls (including minors) are now arranged through schools, despite the emotional and physical risks to the girls involved. The terms of reference of the review do not make any specific reference to schools.

"Children spend a great part of their lives in the school environment, and are taught to respect school as a moral authority. If schools teach children that under-age and pre-marital sex, STIs and abortion are the norm, they can do more harm than commercial operators promoting 'sexy' clothes or using sexualised images to sell goods.

"The government is right to emphasise the importance of supporting parents in protecting their children. Schools should be encouraged to sever ties with anti-life and anti-family groups, and to engage with parents to ensure that they have confidence to talk about sexual matters with their children."

The recent Jomeen/university of Hull report found that 13-16 year olds preferred parents as a source of useful information about sexual matters above teachers or any other adult.

First we would like to clear the air and to clarify to all the people, and to the Catholics, regarding the position of the Church with regard to the use of condoms for the peace of mind and proper guidance.

We reiterate and reaffirm that the position of the Catholic Church as regards the use of condoms, both as a means of contraception and as a means of addressing the grave issue of HIV/AIDS infection has not changed and remains as always unacceptable.

Why is the Catholic Church's teaching on condom use (and dissent from that teaching) important for the pro-life movement? The late Pope John Paul II, the great pro-life champion, taught in paragraph 97 of his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that it is an illusion to think that we can build a true culture of human life if we do not offer adolescents and young adults an authentic education in sexuality, and in love, and the whole of life according to their true meaning and in their close interconnection.

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Dan Zeidler, who is well-known within the international pro-life movement as an authority on the fight for unborn babies in central and south America, has sent me a great pro-life video about Chile's culture of life. The video links the recent world-famous rescue of 33 trapped miners, government advertisements promoting protection for unborn children and Chile's pro-life laws. Dan writes:

"Chile’s pro-life policies have helped make Chile the safest place in all of Latin America for a mother to give birth. Chile has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the whole continent.

Chile’s new president, Sebastián Piñera, expressed a strong position against abortion during his campaign, and during his May 21st presidential speech to the nation, he announced a new government program called “Committed to Life” to offer help to pregnant women to carry their babies to term.

The government of Chile has also made strong declarations at recent UN meetings explaining that Chile is a pro-life country, and will not accept abortion."

"Our local Catholic school has five full time Connexions advisors. An agreement is supposed to have been made that they won't promote contraception or refer for abortion while in the school, which is useless, because the whole point of Connexions is that they believe in doing these things confidentially. "

The Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales, which employs the Catholic Education Service (CES), can be assured that the Catholic parents up and down the country will not quietly drop their protest against Connexions and the CES. We will never stop until Connexions and all other similar schemes are permanently barred from every Catholic school. And we will never stop our campaign for the CES to be radically reformed - starting with the appointment of Greg Pope, its deputy director - or abolished. In this work we will call down the strength of the Lord by praying with our Holy Father Pope Benedict his recently-composed prayer for the unborn:

Lord Jesus[,] Reawaken in us respect for every unborn life,
make us capable of seeing in the fruit of the maternal womb
the miraculous work of the Creator,
open our hearts to generously welcoming every child
that comes into life.

Bless all families,
sanctify the union of spouses,
render fruitful their love.

Accompany the choices of legislative assemblies
with the light of your Spirit,
so that peoples and nations may recognize and respect
the sacred nature of life, of every human life.

...

Together with Mary, Your Mother, the great believer,
in whose womb you took on our human nature,
we wait to receive from You, our Only True Good and Savior,
the strength to love and serve life,
in anticipation of living forever in You,
in communion with the Blessed Trinity. Amen

John Smeaton

About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 39 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to SPUC's staff, supporters and advisers for their help to me in researching, writing and producing this blog.

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